ReachOut

My parents read things to me that one would read to grownups, or certainly not a 6-7 year-old child. _Call of the Wild_ is hard core for the soft hearted. _Moby Dick_, have you ever tried reading some of that on a day when you need to RELAX? For my seventh birthday, added in the stack was a leather bound Bible with my name engraved in gold leaf. The edges were gold leaf too, and there were masterpiece paintings reproduced at delightful intervals. Of course, I was in what Piaget termed the "concrete stage of cognitive development" so when I read the inscription by my parents about a treasure to be found in the pages, I turned the thing up and shook it, looking for the money. Concrete is concrete.

As my introduction, mother read me the "Book of Job." She'd prepared me well. I could handle it after recovering from the terrorization of dogs and whales and assimilating those natural conditions into my schema of "how the world operates." Job made sense. It was the right place to start. She didn't know it was the oldest book written of them all. When you read it and the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ they do that: they mesh. There were giants and creatures and old worlde realities in days gone by that we can only read about now and imagine.

I was primed for a life of literature. I read the whole book on my own. It took awhile and several flashlight batteries because I had a full day and an imposed bedtime. Dad sneaked me the batteries. I went from that to Homer, Edith Hamilton's _Greek Mythology_, _Swiss Family Robinson_ and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, all the Twain and Dickens books, then the Brontes, Jane Austin. By ten I knew fact from fiction pretty solidly.

I didn't have any problem seeing the Bible as fact. I went on to get my Master's degree in English Literature and added the credits for an MA in Writing while I was at it. The ancient Greek stuff had history, theology, philosophy all mixed in. I loved it all. My teachers were frustrated because school was B O R I N G and my California Achievement Tests had me maxing out anything they had within their reach to teach me on grade level. I preferred to play jacks, work in the library, scheme ways to make money and look for book buddies.

I'm still looking for book buddies. I "know stuff." When you know you want to share.

Reaching out. Yeah. Doing that.--Keevah